


but how much would've been enough?

by iwantacorgisobad



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Flashbacks, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, John Watson Thinks Sherlock Holmes is Dead, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, guess the gay could be read into it, okay so I meant it to be platonic but you can read it however you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantacorgisobad/pseuds/iwantacorgisobad
Summary: For all John knows, Sherlock is dead. He goes home to an empty flat, thinking he could just pack his stuff and leave, but the ghosts of the times they spent there together think otherwise.[i'm bad at summaries and even worse at giving titles but i compensate by being good at angst!!!]
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	but how much would've been enough?

**Author's Note:**

> //yes i'm late to the party but i guess the fandom is sorta revived now so i guess it's cool ?? but anyway. this is my first attempt at a fic for bbc's take, i've written plenty for guy ritchie's sherlock but i guess the two aren't the same so sorry if you find any misplaced characterization or smth here lmao//  
> anyway!! onto the story now

London wasn’t a quiet city, not even at night.

Still, the silence of the flat they used to share drowned everything else out.

John sat at the table still cluttered with things he didn’t dare move, barely leaving space for him to rest his elbows on as he leaned on his hands, hiding his face – but from whom? – and smudging his tears. His laptop was still before him, and on any other night he’d be typing away on it eagerly, trying to find the right words to describe Sherlock’s unmatched brilliancy once more; but not tonight, no.

Nor on any of his remaining ones, he realized with what felt like a stab to his already withering heart.

Tears came once more, and this time he didn’t stop them from falling.

 _Falling_.

John sniffed, gasped in a breath, and pushed himself upright on shaking legs. Why was he even doing this to himself?

He limped over to his chair and collapsed in it; eyes closed as he revelled in the familiar, welcoming feeling for a brief moment. He knew when he’d look up again Sherlock wouldn’t be there – so he didn’t. Because in his mind he was still there. In his heart, he was still there.

_“John,” he said, but his gaze remained fixed somewhere to John’s left._

_“Yes?”_

_“You’re too loud.”_

_“I—haven’t said a word,” he backtracked, blinking at Sherlock a few times._

_“But you’re thinking. It’s loud.”_

John let out a muffled cry, one hand covering his mouth so as not to be _too loud_.

They’d had that conversation a while ago—the case they were working on proved to be more difficult than they’d initially thought, and John was quickly getting fed up with the dead ends they kept running into. He hadn’t meant to be distracting, though, _he didn’t know he could be just by staying silent_ , but Sherlock’s words sent his mind to a rather blank place quickly.

He didn’t know why his brain came up with this specific memory out of the hundreds – no, thousands – they had shared there, but it was enough to make him feel even worse, even more alone. No one to shut his racing mind down now when he really needed it.

He pulled his legs onto the chair, curling in on himself.

He remembered the last time he did that.

_It wasn’t too long ago, maybe a few weeks at most. They had just got back from solving a case, a rather big one, after which Lestrade had persuaded them into a few pints at a pub nearby. He wouldn’t have said they were drunk, no, but it was enough to make John feel sleepy and Sherlock a little bit too giddy. For himself, at least._

_“I’m never leaving this chair again,” John said, kicking off his shoes and pulling his feet up._

_“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock scoffed, and although John couldn’t see because his eyes were closed, he imagined Sherlock had smiled. At least a tiny bit. “You’re going to have to pee in approximately twenty minutes.”_

_“Don’t tell me what to do,” he mumbled, already dozing off._

_“I wasn’t,” Sherlock said, and this time John was sure he heard a huff of laughter. After that he heard him remove his scarf and coat, hang them on a hook, toe off his own shoes, then as silently as ever, walk over to his own chair. John felt that last one rather than heard. He couldn’t quite explain it, though. But when he blinked and Sherlock stared back at him, he knew his senses hadn’t fully abandoned him._

_Or, quite the opposite, they were intensified around Sherlock._

_Or because of Sherlock._

_He assumed living with a sociopath could do that to you._

_“You’re staring,” John deadpanned. Sherlock’s mouth twitched but he remained unmoving._

_“I am thinking with my eyes open,” he corrected, and John noticed the corners of his lips had stayed curled upwards. He returned the smile as subconsciously as Sherlock had smiled at him._

_“Keep telling yourself that,” he then said, hoping to have the last word, and closed his eyes again. What he didn’t see after that was Sherlock shaking his head and dropping his gaze to the floor, his expression unchanging._

_He fell asleep within seconds and woke hours later to find a blanket draped over him._

_The room was still and dark, yet somehow, he couldn’t feel alone._

Not back then, that is.

He gathered the courage to open his eyes, squinting as if it were too bright in the room, although his source of light had just been put out. He mentally slapped himself for letting his thoughts go down that road, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from immersing in his own pity. He hadn’t really thought that through but once it slipped into his mind for a fragment of a second, he couldn’t deny Sherlock was exactly that for him.

Light.

_He remembered how his mind had already went there on one of their first nights in the flat._

_Sherlock was in the bath, had been for a good twenty minutes already, when John’s eyes fell on his cane discarded among other, yet to be organized stuff packed on and around the desk._

_Funny, he had thought, how he didn’t need it anymore and all it took was one crazy day of adventure with Sherlock Holmes._

_Sherlock Holmes._

_What an unusual name. Then again, the man himself was unusual. Bright in ways he had seen no one else be. Smart, quick-witted, observant, arrogant, very sure of himself and so, so childish at times. And somehow, all of that added up to a very endearing result._

_Somehow, the past few days had made him feel alive again. Somehow Sherlock of all people had managed to treat him like a human. He had noticed John had been to war immediately, he knew about his sister’s alcohol abuse, his complicated relationship with his family, his wounds and his trauma, and he just—didn’t care. And Donovan’s words rang is his ears, calling Sherlock a freak, advising him to stay away, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was mistaken; if instead of feeling like he was treated right again he should feel mistreated, that Sherlock didn’t even mean to make him feel like that, he was just blunt and inconsiderate like everyone else had said—_

_“I thought you were watching TV?” Sherlock’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts._

_“Yeah, uh, was going to,” he nodded. “I just, I got distracted.”_

_He hummed, switched off the bathroom lights, then walked over to the other chair and plopped down on it. He eyed John curiously for a few seconds._

_“Do not ever listen to Donovan,” he finally said, and John’s mouth fell agape. “Or Anderson, for that matter.”_

_“How did you—”_

_“Please. They_ talk _. There’s nothing better for them to do, apparently. And you’re new here, and you’re around me. They don’t like that,” he concluded, not really giving away as much as John would’ve liked him to, but it seemed he’d have to be content with that for the time being._

_“I didn’t,” John tried to reassure. “Listen to them, I mean.”_

_“Obviously,” he snickered, and when John gave him a confused look, he added, “you’re still here.”_

_His brain didn’t know how to respond but his body did, and as the unexpected flutter of his heart told him so, he gave Sherlock a bright smile. And he returned it._

Bright.

Light.

Yes, that’s what he needed, and he scrambled to get it, to turn on the nearest lamp so that he could be sure the shadows falling on the floor before him weren’t cast by the figure his mind had projected into the chair opposite him.

The switch clicked and the shadows were gone.

Of course.

John’s head hurt, but he wasn’t sure from what—the sudden light or the hours of crying, or maybe the grief he somehow, through all their years of chasing criminals, had never thought would feel. Not for Sherlock; he never believed the day would come—and so soon—when he wasn’t by his side anymore. Sherlock was a constant. Used to be.

_For the past few years of his life, there wasn’t a day that didn’t start and end with Sherlock. If he couldn’t find him in the flat in the morning, there would always be a note or a text, or a used teacup in the sink—but those were just things. Material, yes, but in that matter, insignificant. John knew his day started with Sherlock once again the second his mind had started looking for him._

_The nights were no different. More often than not he fell asleep to the sound of Sherlock still shuffling around in the kitchen, the fridge door opening and closing, the shower running, water boiling in the kettle, something falling on the floor; sometimes even the violin. That was his favourite—well, on nights sleep didn’t matter that much. He used to say it was too loud, that’s why he couldn’t sleep, but really, he just enjoyed listening to it._

Realization hit him with another heave that he’d never be able to listen to it again.

He stood quickly, stumbling a few times on his way to the sink but desperate to get there, certain he’d throw up from overexerting himself, but once he leaned over, the urge was gone. Somewhere in the back of his mind was an emergency alarm blaring, had been for a while, he realized as his head cleared somewhat after he splashed water on his face.

He felt cold.

Not just where his skin was still damp, his whole body was shaking.

Was he even cold? Was he shaking because of that?

_He pulled the blanket together over his chest a little tighter before reaching for the steaming cup of tea clumsily. His hand shook terribly as waves of cold ran down his spine and he couldn’t wait to be upstairs, back in his bed, curled up under more blankets._

_“John?” Sherlock called, voice a little muffled. John stopped shuffling around to hear him out. “Is that you in the kitchen?”_

_“Yes,” he croaked, mustering all his willpower to respond at all. Who else would it be?_

_He half expected Sherlock to ask him to make a cup of tea but there was no answer for a while, and John decided he didn’t care enough to wait. Instead, he finally grabbed his drink and turned around, only to come face to face with Sherlock._

_“Oh, Jesus,” he breathed, eyes falling closed as he tried to regain his balance, “stop sneaking up on me.”_

_“Are you ill? You look terrible,” Sherlock said instead of addressing his request. Blunt as ever._

_John smiled at the thought without noticing._

_“Just a cold,” he dismissed, and went for dodging his friend, but he stepped in his way._

_“Give that to me.” John raised an eyebrow, pulling his tea closer to his chest. He had worked way too hard for it. “You’ll spill it on the stairs, you can barely walk.”_

_“I’m fine, Sherlock,” he said, but as much as he wanted to sound exasperated, he really couldn’t. He knew Sherlock wasn’t as cold-hearted as people made him out to be, but to see him openly caring wasn’t a usual thing for John, either. In the common sense, that is—in his own weird ways, Sherlock really cared about him more than anyone else had ever done. And that thought made him smile again._

_“You don’t look fine. Do you have a fever? Why are you smiling?” he asked, furrowing his brows and smoothing a hand over John’s forehead and—oh. Maybe he shouldn’t have got mushy affectionate with Sherlock still there. Fever did funny things to people, he decided. “God, have you got medicine for this?”_

_“Uh, yeah, there’s—there’s some ibuprofen in my room, I’m sure,” John nodded, closing his eyes for a bit again, but Sherlock pulled his hand back quickly._

_Clearing his throat, he said, “Great. Take some.” John was about to cut in, saying something along the lines of ‘I am the doctor here’, but Sherlock was faster to speak again, “If you will.”_

_“If you let me pass,” he reminded pointedly, but his gaze remained soft as they locked eyes. And then stayed like that for a while._

_“Right,” Sherlock said, and as he stepped away John almost stepped after him. He muttered something under his breath that Sherlock couldn’t make out before leaving the kitchen in a rather awkward silence._

_“If you need something, text me,” Sherlock called after him._

_A beat of silence, then John snickered, “Not like you’ll bring it.”_

_“No, but I can act like it,” he replied, lips curving into a smile on their own. He couldn’t see John as he was already half up the stairs, but he was sure he returned it._

God, how he missed being able to smile.

Although a sarcastic, pitiful one dragged the corners of his mouth up for a bit, he couldn’t consider that one real, no.

Gathering what was left of his willpower he pushed himself away from the counter and made his way back to the living room to look for a blanket, a jumper, _anything_ to make him feel warm—but once he found it and draped it over his shoulders, it started to sink in that no matter what he put on his body, the cold would remain.

He couldn’t get rid of the loneliness or grief, after all.

_He remembered these feelings from before, although he felt them for quite different reasons, back in the day. Not in the army, no—they didn’t have much time to grieve or feel alone, always cramped up somewhere with a few other blokes, always on the go. No, he felt it after the war, after he had to come back, leave the battleground, the rush of the raids, the adrenaline—he knew he left a piece of himself, too._

_And maybe it was for the better, maybe the part of him missing made room for something else, something much more exhilarating to fill that void._

_Still, he couldn’t help yearning to have it back on the early nights, as messed up as it was._

_Whenever he felt that—that he couldn’t go on without the constant fight in his life, without his comrades by his side, without the thrill—, he forced himself to look around, to take in what life had given him not even long after he had come back to London. He had his own place. It was a flatshare, yes, but he was not going to lose it, he could afford it, and he even got an inarguably unusual, not-at-all-boring flatmate with it. He got rid of his limp. Well, Sherlock got rid of it for him, if he wanted to be honest, but then again, that was just another reason why this accommodation looked more promising every day. His landlady was actually nice. He could have his peace if he wanted but also, Sherlock kept him occupied most of the time, and he couldn’t deny enjoying it, as strange as the whole situation was._

_He sometimes missed what he used to be like, what his_ life _used to be like—but all he had to do was take a look around their messy flat, and he knew this was exactly where he belonged._

Funny enough, John could barely stand the thought of living in 221B anymore.

In fact, he was going to pack his things right away and be ready to move as soon as he found another place. Mrs Hudson would understand. His heart ached at the thought of leaving her alone, but he was sure she would find someone again.

Finally having some motivation back in his system, John took off towards the stairs on wobbly legs, clutching the railing every step he took. Halfway to his room, he contemplated staying.

After all, he would have company. Mrs Hudson would be there, and he could have Lestrade over sometimes. He wouldn’t have to move, to look for another flat, and there would always be something of Sherlock there.

 _Yeah, no._ That’s exactly why he had to leave.

Because even if, for a while, seeing Sherlock’s discarded experiments on the kitchen table or his spare coats on the rack, or catching a whiff of his cologne lingering would bring him a little sense of normality, he knew in the long run it would be what drove him insane. Because it just wasn’t okay, trying to go on with life as if he was still there—tricking his senses into thinking he was still there.

Besides, he was sure being faced with his memories every second he spent at home wouldn’t let him heal, either. Not even if he decided to clean out, get rid of Sherlock’s stuff—which he wouldn’t have the heart to do, anyway.

Entering his room then closing the door quietly, he took a moment to pull himself together before he turned on the lights.

_The memory of that one night he had found Sherlock on his bed sprung to the front of his mind._

_It was late, John just got back from work and he was tired, so, so tired and frankly, he just wanted to sleep. The past two weeks at the clinic were hectic with the flu season kicking in, which meant more hours and more work and more stress every year. And less sleep._

_He was, in fact, so tired he didn’t even notice Sherlock until he greeted him impassively. Not that the already lit table lamp shouldn’t have given him away._

_“Bloody—what are you doing here?” John wheezed. Sherlock barely looked up from his book for a second._

_“Reading,” he answered. John rolled his eyes._

_“Yes, I can see that—” He could also see Sherlock opening his mouth to ask why he was asking then, “but why in my bed?”_

_“Got bored of my own.”_

_“There’s—we’ve got the living room and the kitchen,” John went on, voice pitching slightly and making him sound like he was asking rather than stating. He cleared his throat. Sherlock didn’t move._

_“Boring,” he said, “besides, I wanted to see your reaction to finding me here. Which was priceless, by the way, so thank you for that.”_

_“Not funny, Sherlock,” he exhaled slowly, rubbing his temples. God, how he wanted to sleep._

_“It is a little,” he disagreed, then shut his book with a soft thud and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. John watched with what he imagined was utter disbelief, but the face Sherlock made when seeing his own indicated that maybe it hadn’t come off the way he wanted. Maybe the fond exasperation he felt for him somewhere deep down had seeped through and made itself known on his face._

_They eyed each other for a while, Sherlock’s expression completely unreadable, then John just gave up. Hell, Sherlock hadn’t even stood up, he was just sitting somewhere else on his bed now, and he was so not dealing with it._

_“Okay, I don’t know what you’re going to do, you’re welcome to stay here if that’s what you want, but I’m going to bed,” he said at last, and began unbuttoning his shirt. There was nothing else to it and he knew it, but still it felt a little too wrong. At least Sherlock wasn’t watching._

_Once he was in his pyjamas and settled under the duvet, he reached for the lamp switch, half sitting up, and gave Sherlock one last glance, “I take it you’re staying?”_

_“Can I?” he asked, then they both visibly froze for a second. Since when was he asking for permission?_

_Then again, since when was he willingly spending his time with other people? Surely in the dark room he couldn’t just mind his own business._

_“I did just offer, didn’t I,” John forced out a little laugh, and deciding it was the final word, switched off the lamp._

_Darkness fell over the room for a few seconds before their eyes got adjusted to the new lighting that barely seeped in through the curtains, and John shuffled around a little bit more to delay the inevitable awkward silence. He settled on his back, not focusing his stare anywhere in particular, just watching the shadows dance for a while, before he felt the mattress dip beside him. He decided it would be for the better if he didn’t make eye contact, so he just kept looking around until his eyelids started to feel heavy._

_It was weird in ways he couldn’t even explain but at the same time, somehow, felt completely normal. He was alarmingly aware of Sherlock’s unmoving presence next to him, or rather, of the fact that it should’ve made him at least somewhat uneasy, but it didn’t. It felt like coming home._

_Maybe he just missed having someone to fall asleep next to._

_Even if that someone was staring blankly ahead, not even under the covers with him but on top of them—not even close to touching him. No, Sherlock had his hands on the book sitting on his stomach, even his elbow was far from John’s, but somehow, knowing he was there was enough._

_He would have liked to contemplate it a little more but sleep soon got the better of him, and then he sort of forgot about the whole scenario for a while._

_They didn’t share a bed after that again, although Sherlock falling asleep on the sofa with his head either on John’s shoulder or his lap became a little more frequent._

_It wasn’t until days later that John realized Sherlock was just missing him._

But they had a solution to that, didn’t they.

To John missing Sherlock now, they didn’t. _He_ didn’t—as he was alone in this now.

He sighed, sounding a little more like a pained wheeze, as he looked around his room. He was getting slightly agitated, seeing shadows everywhere, and suddenly the fight drained out of him.

He’d do this another day. He’d pack his stuff in the morning.

He needed sleep. Dreamless, preferably.

He didn’t have it in him to change out of his clothes, he just lifted the duvet and climbed under, turning his back to the other side of the bed, feeling abnormally empty. It was stupid, he knew, missing something he never even really had aside from that one time he just remembered—and God, how he wished he didn’t—, but knowing Sherlock wasn’t a floor (or, hell, just a text) away anymore made him regret not spending enough time with him.

But how much would’ve been _enough_?

**Author's Note:**

> congrats if you got this far (jk i love you all and thanks for reading!!)


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